A charge pump with low-voltage startup is presented. The charge pump circuit is comprised of transistor pairs arranged in stages, where the charge pump circuit is configured to receive an input voltage and generate an output voltage whose magnitude is larger than magnitude of the input voltage. An energy storage device is configured to receive and store voltage from the charge pump circuit. A switching circuit is interfaced with the control terminals of the transistors in the charge pump circuit. In response to leakage current through the transistors in the charge pump circuit, the switching circuit switches on select transistors in the charge pump circuit while voltage stored by the energy storage device is below threshold voltage of the transistors in the charge pump circuit.